Touch Response

 

Everything is Connected

Watercolor and pen and ink on Bristol paper

“An odd feature of touch is that it doesn’t always have to be performed by another person, or even a living thing.” 

-Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of The Senses, p. 78

Statement: This quote emphasizes how everything in our universe is connected. Touch is not only important to what is alive however it is a vital part of everything around us. I wanted this piece to clearly depict that people are deeply connected to the world around them. This piece also depicts something that is living, the silhouette of a girl, and two things that are not, the mountains and the night sky. Both mountains and stars are two non living things however they touch the world around them. 

What Happens In Death

Acrylic paint, marker on drawing paper

“What seems real we call ‘tangible’, as if it were a fruit whose rind we could feel. When we die, loved ones swaddle us in heavily padded coffins, making us infants again, lying in our mother’s arms before returning to the womb of the earth, ceremoniously unborn.”

-Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of The Senses, p. 71

Statement: This quote describes how life and death are connected. There is also a large emphasis on how people return to the earth when their life is over. I chose to depict flowers growing out of a skull to demonstrate the idea that humans and nature are connected, even in death. Skulls are also a way to represent death as a concept without having to specifically show a person. Skulls symbolize death as a whole which is why I chose to draw a skull and not depict a person.